Middle Powers & Commercial Diplomacy: British Influence at the Kennedy Trade Round

This book marries the disciplines of international relations and diplomatic history to provide a major new study of the GATT system in the 1960s. Using recently declassified British and American government documents, the key role British diplomats played at the Kennedy round is identified. Through the close ties that characterize the Anglo-American relationship, the British influenced American policy and strategy in the negotiations. The evidence of this study challenges realist theories of middle power influence in the international political economy by demonstrating the determining role of state-level factors such as diplomatic skill and policy expertise. Further, finding evidence of the continuing importance of Anglo-American relations to American and British foreign policy interests, the book will encourage debate on the question of whether the so-called 'special relationship' was, to use former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson's phrase, 'played out' in the 1960s.